Royal Holloway

Visiting Research Fellow in the Department of Classics, Royal Holloway, University of London, Academic Year 2006/7

The Principal of Royal Holloway, University of London (RHUL), Professor Stephen Hill, had informed me in a letter dated March 17th, 2006, that the Academic Board of Royal Holloway had agreed that I "should be invited to become a Visiting Research Fellow in the Department of Classics for the 2006/2007 Academic Year", and had sent his best wishes on the appointment. I was honoured by this invitation and accepted with enthusiasm: It offered a unique chance to do research and teaching in a much larger, and certainly more lively (dare I say: better) department than the small unit which is my Chair of Ancient History at the University of Mannheim (3.5 FTE members of staff, no Latin, Greek or Archaeology), which I serve at the same time as ProVC. As the academic year draws to a close now, I would like to take the opportunity of this brief report to thank everyone who has made my time in Royal Holloway so productive, and so thoroughly enjoyable, especially, of course, the Principal, and the Head of Department Prof Jonathan Powell, and his family.The Department was most forthcoming in giving me access to the Postgraduate Room, which is the largest room in the department - and thus a good symbol for how much the classicists at RHUL value research! I was also given access to RHUL’s research facilities, including the library (which, e.g., provides access to resources like JSTOR, which my home university does not subscribe to for my field) and the computing service. So let me start with a survey of the research publications which were published, or in progress, during my tenure of the Visiting Research Fellowship at RHUL.

Research

Refereed Articles (more than half of them are in English, so my fellowship at RHUL was ideal for finishing, or indeed writing them)

In addition, I am planning a project on aspects of ancient economy with Dr (now Prof) Lene Rubinstein.It was a special honour to be invited for a paper in the RHUL Departmental Research Seminar, where the topic "We’d have become all Roman - Turning points in the Roman conquest of Germany" (27.2.07) sparked a lively and interesting discussion with colleagues and graduates for which I was most grateful. From RHUL, I also gave papers, inter alia, at the University of Liverpool classics research seminar (on "An overdose of love potion or a case of malicious poisoning? Antiphon 1", 20.3.07), and at a conference on "Science and other Knowledges in Tributary Empires" at the University of St.Andrews (on "Geographical Knowledge and Imperialism in the Ancient World", 1.4.07).In addition, the RHUL Visiting Research Fellowship also allowed me to take part in a conferences on Greek Papyrology in Oxford (Christ Church, 20.-23.9.06), in two inaugural lectures at RHUL, Prof Edith Hall on "Aeschylus’ Persians via the Ottoman Empire to Saddam Hussein" (13.11.06) and Prof Ruedinger Schack on "Quantum Dice and Random Numbers" (20.11.06) as well as the University of London Research Seminar with Dr H. Mouritsen (KCL) on "The Power of the People: Ancient and Modern" (18.1.07), and the RHUL HARC seminar with Dr Kosta Vlassopoulos (Nottingham) on "Beyond Imposed Identities: Aristotle, slavery and association" (28.3.07), and to visit colleagues in other classics departments in the UK, among them Dr Kathryn Lomas (UCL, 14.10.06), Dr Henrik Mouritsen (KCL, 20.10.06), Prof Jonathan Draper (Pietermaritzburg/South Africa, in Oxford 26.2. and 20.5.07), Prof John K. Davies, Prof Tom Harrison and Dr Ashley Cooke (Liverpool, 18.-20.3.07), and Dr Susanna Phillippo / Newcastle (2.-6.4.07).In turn, I was happy to welcome several British colleagues in Mannheim, among them Prof Angelos Chaniotis (All Souls, Oxford), Dr Lene Rubinstein (RHUL), Dr Philip de Souza (now in Dublin) and Prof Hans van Wees (UCL), at the international conference on the "Cost of War in Antiquity" (16.-18.2.07), and, for individual research papers, Prof Ken Dowden (Birmingham, 15.5.07) and Dr Henrik Mouritsen (KCL, 25.5.07), as well as, for a conference on vincere scis victoria uti nescis, Dr Anton Powell (Swansea, 4.6.07).So the Visiting Research Fellowship was a great help both for my own research publications, and for furthering scholarly exchange with RHUL (and other) British colleagues in the field of Classics.

Teaching

Academic life would be incomplete without teaching (I had happily taught, as Visiting Research Fellow, at the Universites of Newcastle upon Tyne and St. Andrews in previous years), and I was most grateful that the RHUL department allowed me, at my insistence, to do some teaching, mainly in the first term for CL 1560 "Roman History and Society: The Julio-Claudians". The course, consisting of 15 lectures and 15 seminars (another 5 seminars were given by Michael Ng), is meant for first year students, and some 70 of them took part, attended lectures and seminars, and wrote two essays each. I was impressed by the commitment and interest of most of my RHUL students, and happy to get some positive feedback, too! I was glad to offer a revision class on 28.3.07, and that the exams went well.In addition, I was also allowed to look after third year students in the Extended Essays course CL 3200, and was pleased with the presentations on 28. and 29.3.07 and the eventual results. Jason Bonner wrote on the pre-accession military career of the Roman emperors, Stephanie Ludlow on Boudicca, and Jonathan Ravenhill on "What were Caesar’s tactics in the failed conquests of Britain?".Before my arrival I had marked several essays - 10 for CH 3357, and 4 for CH 3358 - on the Roman army, and at the end of the academic year it was a special pleasure to be invited to take part in the presentation of RHUL at the Classics Taster Course in London on 21.06.07.In the University of London, I took part, on behalf of RHUL, in the teaching of the MA-Course "M500 Sources and Methods in Ancient History", organised by King’s College London for the (federal) University of London, of which Royal Holloway forms a part, specifically giving a seminar on Roman Historiography (20.10.06), and meeting students wishing to write an essay in this field. They submitted in June, and I acted as second marker for Samantha Reide and Alex Rowson, and as first marker for Michael Barrington, Claire Braddick, Katherine Briddon, Geoff Dawson, Eleni Karayianni, Stephen Matthews and Duncan Taylor.In the vacation, I took a group of some 20 Mannheim students to London (16.-21.1.07); accomodation was in a youth hostel, and enabled them, and some British students who came along, to visit museums (among them the British Museum, the Museum of London, the Museum in Docklands, Sir John Soane's Museum, the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the National Maritime Museum) and historical sites (the Mithraeum in the City of London, but also the tomb of Karl Marx in Highgate) - and several theatre productions, among them Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra (Royal Shakespeare Company) and Twelfth Night (Old Vic) as well as Alan Bennett, The History Boys (National Theatre). They especially enjoyed being allowed to take part in the University of London research seminar mentioned above (18.1.07).

RHUL

As will have become clear, the Visiting Research Fellowship was a most valuable, and enjoyable, experience. I am very grateful for the honour and opportunity for research, teaching and making scholarly contacts it has meant for me, and for the warm welcome in the department. While Prof Richard Alston, Prof Edith Hall, Dr Nick Lowe, and Prof Boris Rankov were on sabbatical leave for the year (but allowed me to see them all the same, and even came to the research seminar), and Dr Jari Pakkanen for the first term, Dr Amanda Claridge, Dr Richard Hawley, Prof Ahuvia Kahane, Dr Chris Kremmydas, Dr Lene Rubinstein, Prof Jonathan Powell, Dr Anne Sheppard and Dr Efi Spentzou were there, and were helpful in many ways, both academically and socially. I am grateful to them, and to the marvellous people in the department's office, the administrative assistant Linda Frost and the departmental administrator Margaret Scrivner.It was a special pleasure to share the Postgraduate Room with Eduardo Boechat, Edward Bragg, Dr Barbara Kowalzig, Lisa Hau, Dr Judith Owen, Dr Peter Rose, Michael Ng and others - it was good to have the "camaraderie" of research activity in that large room, and to discuss the graduates’ (and my own) research with them.A most memorable event was the very well attended, and very well presented Carol Service in RHUL chapel (10.12.06), and very enjoyable also were the receptions, following the inaugurals, in the Picture Gallery, at which I also had a chance to talk to the Principal and thank him in person for the appointment to the Visiting Research Fellowship. My last and largest and lasting thanks, however, go to Dr Lene Rubinstein (whom I am very happy to congratulate on her appointment to a Personal Chair at the very end of my year at RHUL!) and Prof Jonathan Powell - and, of course, their wonderful young son David!